Doha: Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) has signed an agreement with Rome City Council to use the RASAD Health Monitoring Platform.
The RASAD Health Monitoring Platform is an ICT platform developed by QSTP which is internationally recognised as a valuable tool for monitoring patients suffering from different diseases especially the life-style related ones.
Through its sensors, the RASAD platform can collect data and transmit it wireless to cloud based servers. "This has not been done anywhere else in the world, not even in the US," said Tidu Maini, Executive Chairman of QSTP. "This is for the first time a foreign institution using a Qatari developed tool," he added.
As by 2020 70 percent of all chronic diseases expected to be lifestyle related, the RASAD platform is fundamental as on the one side helps researchers establish the link between specific habits and several diseases, and on the other side helps monitor physical activity in order to prevent diseases, make treatments more effective and define new health policies.
Heart patients, for example, will not be forced to spend a long recovery period in hospitals, but they will be allowed to stay at home followed via wireless tools by their cardiologists. This new tool has also important cost implications as it will help save money as it involves lesser hospital stay. Less patients means also less expenses in health care for the state.
The RASAD platform was tried on motorbike drivers while speeding at 300km/h to record their physical performance: the data were analysed in Doha, Monte Carlo and other cities Simultaneously. Now the RASAD platform will be used in Rome to monitor 770 Italian children in order to prevent chronic metabolic diseases. The analysis of the data collected will be carried out both by the Faculty of Medicine of the La Sapienza University of Rome and by the Hospital Sant'Andrea. In this way the RASAD platform has both clinical and academic implications, representing a step forward as a future partnership between Qatar and Italy that could involve also universities and hospitals.
"Thanks to the fiscal federalism now applied in Italy, Rome has a new status and wants to gain international visibility" said Enrico Cavallari, Minister of Technology and IT Networks. "Rome has nearly three million people, 10 million tourists every year, 300, 000 enterprises and 500,000 students" he added. But the city of Rome also has ¤12bn debt plus around ¤700m to pay as interest rand the depreciation of loans.
Cavallari said that the government would have to deal with it as this is a previous debt accumulated before the actual administration settled itself at the Campidoglio, where the Roman city government works.
"Rome and Doha are the capitals of knowledge and now we are starting a new path surrounded by great satisfactions" said Cavallari. As Doha is getting ready to host the Football World Cup 2022, on the same year Rome might host the Olympic Games.
The hosting country of 2022 Olympic Games will be announced only in 2013, so the state will have less than seven years to prepare itself for the event. In case Rome wins the bid, the Italian capital will have to face various infrastructure problems and Qatar could be an interesting partner.
© The Peninsula 2011
